Illustrations by way of Sarah Becan, foreword by means of Gordon Echlin

Many humans have heard of Freemasonry, yet few have any proposal what it really is, what it does, or why it exists. Freemasonry isn't really a faith, yet really a religious self-help society whose declared objective is to assist participants turn into larger electorate, and it has a powerful tune list of doing simply that because it begun in Scotland within the fifteenth century.

Freemasonry For Beginners explores the goals and instructing equipment of Freemasonry and describes its effect on society some time past, current, and destiny. It recounts the origins of the circulate in Scotland and its unfold to North the USA and the remainder of the realm. now not least of all, it exhibits how Masonic teachings have helped such a lot of participants over the centuries study the talents to develop into leaders in society, technology, and the arts.

In a piece of remarkable breadth and readability, Paul Conkin deals an even-handed and in-depth examine the foremost American-made varieties of Christianity—a different crew of spiritual traditions, each one of which displays an important holiday from western Christian orthodoxy. settling on six precise kinds, Conkin examines the key denominations consultant of every unique number of American Christianity: recovery (Churches of Christ, Disciples of Christ); humanistic (Unitarians, Universalists); apocalyptic (Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses); Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints); religious (Christian technology, Unity); and ecstatic (Holiness and Pentecostal denominations).

We know this because their early Masonic floorcloth, which shows all the symbols used in Freemasonry, survives to the present day. It has been carbon dated to the 15th century, and its provenance has been traced to Aberdeen. There was no other lodge of Freemasons at the time, so we know they must have created it. But what inspired them to do something so new and 29 FREEMASONRY FOR BEGINNERS innovative in their little workshop alongside the partly built St Nicholas’s Kirk? To understand their inspiration, we need to remember that some of the early members and masters of the Lodge of Aberdeen had formerly worked on Rosslyn Chapel, farther to the south.

First, loosely defined symbols were used to create images, emotions, and feelings in a ritual context. This is the essential idea used in modern visual advertising. The other purpose was to help the human mind to reason and develop a deeper grasp of the world. To understand how this happened, you need to know that there are three main types of symbols: Emotive Symbols, which encode feelings and aspirations. These are the oldest of all symbols, dating back 70,000 years, and they have been widely used in history to evoke emotion in illiterate people.

These are formal ways of proving yourself a Fellowcraft that are used only inside the lodge. Ritually, meanwhile, you are working on the construction of the second story of the building that is your character. You will act out the climbing of stairs to reach the second level, where you will be told that it is now your duty to study “the hidden mysteries of nature and science” in order that you might better understand the world you live in. The ritual of the Second Degree has inspired many scientists over the years.